


Between the Model and the Camera is Three Endless Meters

by Tabi



Category: Kiss x Kiss: Seirei Gakuen
Genre: Cameras, Exhibitionism, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-11
Updated: 2008-09-11
Packaged: 2017-10-21 16:11:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/227101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabi/pseuds/Tabi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Takumu likes to be photographed. Kazuya likes to take photographs. On the whole, this seems to be a good combination.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Between the Model and the Camera is Three Endless Meters

Behind the lens of a camera, Takumu is distant and unreachable.

Being the person behind the camera has never rid Kazuya of this opinion. He wasn't always a photographer but even from childhood he could remember seeing pictures in glossy magazines, doe-eyed waifs with porcelain skin and come-hither expressions, women who said nothing and everything with a pose and a glance and somehow, this was connected to the latest perfume, hand cream, lingerie. Kazuya didn't really understand it but then, he didn't know much about advertising. Just that it seemed to work.

Where did these figures come from? Not real life, surely. Real life was full of ugliness and imperfection and mediocrity, these pictures were an impossible ideal. Was this something that the photographer witnessed? Were these women kept away somewhere, herded like sheep until the next photoshoot or were they ordinary women that you'd meet along any street or in any shop, transformed somehow at the click of a lens?

Somewhere along the line, this curiosity became a passion became an obsession. Each sunset was different; capture it on film. There was enough space on a computer harddrive to keep track of the sunset until the end of the next millennia if anybody were around to witness such a thing, but Kazuya didn't only go after the natural view. It held beauty, of course. Urban landscapes were breathtaking, too. Standing on the roof of Seirei Gakuen in the middle of the winter evening, night fallen and light dancing in the city beyond. Random students would ask Kazuya if he'd take their photo. He'd agree. Everything was practice, right?

Sakura had tried to cross the line. A girlfriend could be a model but a model wasn't necessarily a girlfriend and she seemed to have got confused at this. That had been... rather messy. It would have been easy to see the heartbreak on film had she let him capture it afterward. She didn't.

Takumu comes into the Student Council building after having been off school for the morning. He looks tired and is irritable. Had to be up at five that morning to be at a photoshoot and even then, he couldn't get the whole day off to nap in the afternoon. Yoshikuni only sorts his papers in the background, trying to keep Takumu close for as long as is possible. Even if the end of his third year isn't for quite some time, each day is one day closer and even an afternoon in Takumu's presence is time spent better than in the mere absence of. Takumu doesn't think about any of that anymore. It's more than just photoshoots which exhaust him.

Kazuya walks through the city and sees Takumu's picture on billboards and posters and the electronic plasma screens lighting up the shopping district. Buy this. Buy that. Takumu. Kazuya stops and stares for a while, long enough for the picture to dissolve into the next advertisement. It seems hard to reconcile that vision of Takumu with the knowledge of the Takumu who is his friend and who goes to school alongside him, the Takumu who laughs and smiles and who has been his friend since they were little. Kazuya's never quite been able to get over this fact.

Let's meet up at the weekend. Eat lunch at your house. Go into town later, maybe.

They walk past Takumu's face all over the city but they're deep in conversation and distracted by laughter and Takumu doesn't notice. Kazuya always notices.

Takumu's an easygoing person but sometimes he shows a different expression. When it's late at night and he and Kazuya are walking back from whatever - late-night shopping, a cup of coffee that turned into six before they realised, an event at the Live House - and they're at the housing district and there are all sorts of interesting nooks and crannies between houses and apartment blocks and other buildings. Nobody notices when Takumu pulls Kazuya into one and kisses him, nobody notices that Kazuya kisses back, that Takumu's hands are under Kazuya's shirt and pulling him closer and then there are no shirts or belts, though you don't have to take your trousers off totally to fuck outdoors. Kazuya is surprisingly naturally quiet like this and Takumu can usually keep himself under control, so it's alright.

Kazuya doesn't like it like that, though. You have to go to the shadowy backstreets and by the very nature of such places, you can't see much. Of course it shouldn't be all about that, there are other things like touch and sound and sensation, but Kazuya has himself down as a visual person. He wants to be able to _watch_ Takumu.

That's good, because Takumu likes to be watched.

Sometimes it doesn't go that far. They make their way home and Takumu has that _look_ in his eyes but his tone betrays nothing, those words spoken the same by him as they are by any of the students across Seirei's campus.

" _... Take my picture for me, Kazuya?_ "

Sometimes Kazuya wonders why Takumu even bothers asking. When he's exhausted from professional photoshoots and other such things, why would he ever consider filling his free time with the same activity? He asked Takumu once, Takumu just smiled. The professional things are too impersonal, all about meetings and budgets and products and other tedious things. Spending hours in makeup and not being able to touch your hair in case you risk the perfect styling. The hot glare of the lights and the pose being not _quite_ right. The choreography. The planning. The practice shoots, the actual shoots. " _You probably make enough to go to that stuck-up Ouran place,_ " says Kazuya. Takumu just smiles. He probably does.

Takumu likes Kazuya's impromptu photoshoots because they are about as far away from that kind of thing as you can get. Kazuya has his own equipment in his bedroom - where else is he going to keep it? - but it's totally different. He has the light sheeting and the tripod and Takumu sits on Kazuya's bed and looks across the room. Black curtains block out light though at this time of night that's not a problem, so Takumu thinks. Kazuya wags a finger; streetlights are still a problem. Black curtains and white walls and stylistic lights set into the ceiling; the bedroom could have seemed imposing were it anybody else's but since it's Kazuya's, it just feels... sparse, somehow. There's the bed and the camera equipment and the bedside cabinet with a lamp and a clock on it, but everything else is shut away in wardrobes and cupboards. Kazuya doesn't have posters. Kazuya says he'd buy them if Takumu posed for them. Takumu laughs, not seeming to realise that for once, Kazuya isn't joking. No, but even in the simple black and white of Kazuya's bedroom, there's still an intimacy the big-name photoshoots lack. That's to be expected.

Kazuya carries a digital camera around with him (he had a Polaroid in the first year but then decided to catch up with technology) and uses that the most, but it takes effort to get those specialist shots. Anybody can take a camera and point it these days. Kazuya works to set himself apart from the rest and as Takumu sits on the bed and watches Kazuya snapping the tripod into position and tweaking the other small details, he believes his friend can do it. For that time he is ignored for the sake of the camera and he gets bored, falling back against the pillows and thinking too much. He asks before he's really considered what the answer could be, "... _What's your dream, Kazuya?_ "

" _... Dream? To make good with my photography, what else?_ " He speaks with a smile, but Takumu doesn't.

" _This isn't a dream._ "

" _Hm?_ "

" _Being like this. Doing this. Modelling, I mean._ "

Kazuya stops at that, looking up at Takumu who doesn't look at him.

" _I thought you liked it._ "

" _I wouldn't do it if I didn't like it..._ "

There's too much to say that Takumu doesn't know how to, can't be bothered to. That he's been modelling for so long he's not sure he _can_ do anything else. That he was chosen really before he had any say in the matter but didn't mind because he could do it and he seemed to create a positive reaction, so why not carry on with it? That was usually how it began, with anybody. True talent seemed to be observed by other people. It was both easy and difficult to be a model; anybody could stand there but it took something _special_ to really break into the industry... at that same time, what was he breaking into the industry to _do_? To advocate the hard work of others, to be pampered and preened into something impossible, to be positioned and controlled by design. Every movement had to be perfect. He could achieve perfection easily, but what sort of _dream_ was that? So many people, young girls especially, seemed to dream of being models. They dreamt of that? Of being a doll, a mannequin for others to bend to their whims. It paid well. The social aspect was alluring. The fame was nice. It was easy to sell your soul to the camera. Not everybody was capable of that; when the director asks you to look to the camera he doesn't want you to just turn your eyes, he wants you to _look_. Speak volumes in silence. Generate this vulnerable mystery, this intimate lie for public consumption. They all want you but nobody particularly _wants_ you. If it's not you then it could be some other pretty teenager groomed to perfection for the corporate market; they gave Takumu gift baskets and free products but he rarely uses them. He asks the others on the Student Council if they want them. If they don't, someone else always does. It's fine. Free publicity, Takumu can't stop it.

It would be very easy, Takumu sometimes thinks, to lose yourself like that. Become a shadow of yourself, nothing more than what the camera wants you to be, and what do you do when the lens is pointing at somebody else? That, he supposed, was where the stories of starlet models falling into drug abuse and alcohol addiction came from. It could be frightening. Knowing the competition and what was asked of you, _knowing_ you were beautiful and desired and that your picture would be everywhere and people would be _looking_... it was shallow and it was empty but it kept a voracious appetite. Physical beauty seemed the most ephemeral of states but it was alluring and dangerous, addicting and wicked. It might have been shallow but in that was a depth that could swallow a person whole.

 _I am beautiful and people want me. I am desirable and people recognize this._

 _In an imperfect world, I am some shadow of perfection._

 _Look at this. Look at me. Aren't I wonderful? Aren't I perfect? Isn't it breathtaking that your eyes can even look upon me? Isn't it just amazing that such beauty can exist in the world? Amongst humankind? I have been blessed, so much._

 _Look at me._

 _Don't look away from me._

 _Never look at anybody else._

 _Me._

 _It's all about me._

Sometimes Kazuya would catch Takumu looking at his reflection in a mirror or a window while shopping and smile and roll his eyes, " _Narcissist._ " Takumu would smile without feeling it and wish that Kazuya knew the truth of that statement. He wouldn't smile about it _then_.

 _I like this. I like this too much. It's dangerous. Can't you see how dangerous this is...?_

Kazuya would tend to his equipment again, "... _So what's your dream then, Takumu?_ "

" _... I don't really have one._ "

" _Oh, come on. Everyone has dreams._ "

 _Look at me. Only at me. Always at me. Forever._

 _Anybody._

 _Please._

" _I can't think of any..._ "

" _Tch, you're just not thinking hard enough. Anyway, how do you want to do this? Or did you just say you wanted your photo taken as an excuse to get into my bedroom?_ "

Takumu ignores Kazuya's smile, " _Do what you like._ "

Kazuya's heart skips a beat. That's a dangerous suggestion. Takumu knows that and doesn't care.

Still, Kazuya has his own fairly harmless agenda. Portfolios and collections, he often has displays at the local art gallery in the city. They always like his work and the staff say he's really something. Kazuya keeps all his photos in albums; this became a little harder once he moved to digital, but he still faithfully gets all of his photos printed out. He makes a date for it, once every month he'll go and get the most recent batch done. It can get expensive sometimes, but Kazuya doesn't mind. It's a hobby, after all; hobbies _are_ expensive.

He has albums full of trees and sunsets, birds and animals, people and places. He has albums for group events and he has albums for individuals, he has sections for impromptu photos and marked-off chapters for professional purpose.

He also has albums that are strictly for private use only. He keeps those in a locked cupboard. Nobody shall see _those_.

Kazuya has discovered some truths during his time as a photographer. An old teacher of his once said that the perfect way to get information out of a person was to tell them you're a writer; if it's research, he said, they'll tell you anything. _Anything_. You can't keep them quiet. Along the same lines, if you're a photographer then you'll barely be able to keep people's clothes on. If it's tasteful, if it's professional, if you could give them the CV they needed to step up into the industry then they'll do anything. Kazuya found this. At first, people just found it creepy that he wanted to take their photo, then his first display at the art gallery went down a storm and the news was all over school, Kazuya being part of the Student Council and all. People started to rethink his motivation and recognise his talent. It didn't take long before the girls of Seirei were in his bedroom on his bed blushing and asking for tastefully-done nudes... Kazuya turned them down at first, that was just a bit scary.

But, _how_ was it scary? Was it scary for them, for him? It was all above-board and they were trusting him with that. Kazuya realised there was a real opportunity that had fallen directly into his hands with a lens and a shutter and wasn't it just a simple insult to turn these girls down? It wasn't always girls. Kazuya didn't mind, he photographed them all. For all of his joking perversion around school, he always remained distant and impassive during _those_ shoots. These people really would show anything for the sake of the camera, wouldn't they? That was dangerous. Kazuya knew that and knew that Takumu knew that, too. More than anybody, Takumu knew that.

So far, only Sakura had tried to turn this into a weapon. Oh, and Takumu. Kazuya had deflected Sakura's attack, unable to help hurting her in the process. Takumu was different. Kazuya supposed he was the one getting hurt now but found it hard to care.

They'd take photos for a while. Takumu would do what Kazuya asked. Throw your head back a little more. Mess your hair a little. Look over there--... no, more over here, yes, _that's_ it. Pull up the duvet. Push it down a little there. Move your leg- no, not _that_ way, the oth- yes, like that. Great. Perfect. _Click_.

 _Perfect._

" _Can I see?_ "

 _You're perfect._

When he used the digital camera, Kazuya could barely refuse. He'd bring up the latest photo on the small screen and show it to Takumu, who always seemed to approve.

There were two feelings there. The first for Takumu was always _I look wonderful_ , because he couldn't help it. Then his eyes would glance up at Kazuya for a moment then look back down at the camera and think _he did this, somehow. He captured this, captured me looking like this..._

It was easier to be wistful about it when it was like this. When it was his friend rather than some big-name ambiguity who didn't care. Kazuya cared, Takumu knew this.

It's usually Takumu who instigates the _other_ things. Kazuya likes to keep his dealings tasteful but Takumu's thoughts don't stop for _that_ kind of roadblock. _I like to be looked at and I know you like looking at me, so why not?_ Takumu spreads his legs and leans back and says Kazuya should carry on. He touches himself. Poses shamelessly. Blushes, smirks, knows that this drives Kazuya insane. Comes on that thought. Licks it away. Did you get that, Kazuya? Did you capture that on camera or were you too turned on to bother? If that's the case, I'll just have to try again.

They don't ask for _that_ at the professional photoshoots.

Kazuya thinks that Takumu is shameless but supposes that really, he is too. Sometimes, when Takumu's been naked on his bed for an hour or longer, he wonders how he's able to stand it. Then as they lie together afterward, he supposes that's the evidence that he really can't.

Perhaps it's something that comes from being a model and being used to being watched so intently but Takumu just doesn't seem to get embarrassed. Without the camera in the way, Kazuya can look at Takumu for a little while before feeling uncomfortable and turning away; Takumu just nudges him back, " _Look at me._ " and Kazuya does, because Takumu wants him to. Because Takumu doesn't look away. Because Takumu always seems just so confident and alluring and really it should be impossible to look away from him but for the fact that Kazuya feels strange because as much as he watches Takumu, Takumu always watches back. Just stares. Those eyes seem to burn through the camera. It's too much, like trying to look at the sun. Kazuya doesn't want to get burnt but the heat is addicting.

 _I don't know what I'm doing._

 _What are we doing?_

 _Do you know?_

I _don't know_.

In Kazuya's mind, things are gentle. He doesn't know how he feels but he knows that Takumu is precious to him, his best friend if nothing else. He doesn't want to hurt him in any way. Real life isn't like that. Takumu wants to be fucked and fucked hard so Kazuya finds himself between Takumu's legs and it's exhausting and exhilarating and he wants to pull Takumu close, embrace him and _feel_ him and love him but Takumu won't let him. Pushes his hands to Kazuya's chest if he gets too close, " _If you're that close, you won't be able to watch me_ ". That seems to be what's important, Takumu's deciding factor. Sometimes, Kazuya wonders; do you _have_ to be watched? Can't I hold you like that, just once in a while?

Kazuya lies on the bed, Takumu pounding down against his lap. He likes it like that. Says it makes him feel exposed, like anybody could be watching him.

 _Are you watching me, Kazuya?_

 _I won't forgive you if you close your eyes._

 _Don't you like watching me?_

 _Don't you want to watch me?_

 _Aren't I beautiful?_

 _Say it. Tell me again. Keep telling me._

Sometimes Takumu tells Kazuya to put the camera down, but as things developed he soon stopped doing that. You couldn't bring the tripod into bed but Kazuya's camera wasn't large and wasn't it fun to take pictures like that? Kazuya wasn't sure, but Takumu persuaded him. He liked it, liked looking like that and having it caught on camera. Knowing that Kazuya would keep the picture in one of his secret albums, that maybe he'd look at it while alone and remember, that he'd get hard and maybe touch himself then, alone and wanting.

 _Look at me. Even if it's just a still picture, look at it. And me._

 _I want to make you want, Kazuya._

 _I want you to want me._

 _Need me._

Takumu took photos of Kazuya, once. Kazuya didn't keep those photos. That was too much, that was going too far. He hated it; it was alright when it was someone else, wasn't it? When it was someone else exposing themselves, making themselves vulnerable... Takumu did it and did it far too well but when Kazuya saw himself like that he was scared. Takumu asked if he could keep those photos, Kazuya refused. Burnt them in his garden that night. The world didn't need to see that. Having knowledge of it was bad enough.

Even when they're close like that, Takumu feels like a mystery that Kazuya can't understand. He shows sides that seem so different and don't seem to correlate, shows sides that other people would be shocked to see if they only _knew_. And if they saw? Takumu would only smirk and love it.

As it gets late, Takumu often crashes out on Kazuya's bed. He knows that Kazuya doesn't mind and his parents won't mind if he tells them he's been at a friend's house all night. It's not a lie, is it? They can ask Kazuya's parents if they don't believe him. It's fine like that, isn't it? Nobody has to know the twists and turns the truth provides.

Takumu sleeps and Kazuya puts the camera away, supposing he can either take the floor or the sofa but takes the other side of the bed, pushing Takumu so he can get some room. It's a large bed, why not?... He gets into bed and looks at Takumu's sleeping face and thinks _I shouldn't have put the camera away_ but it's different when Takumu's asleep. He looks so innocent while he's sleeping, even after having done things like _that_... would he appreciate such a picture? Might _that_ be the thing that feels like some kind of violation? Kazuya doesn't know and doesn't like to ask, preferring to think that even through something small and insignificant, Takumu might have some kind of weakness, some kind of adorable flaw that might make him seem... human. Flawed. Like everybody else.

Bring him closer.

Behind the lens of a camera or not, Takumu is distant and unreachable. Kazuya hates it.

No distance was ever crossed by not bothering, though.

 _Takumu._

 _Maybe if I walk far enough, I'll reach you? Someday. Then we can walk side-by-side._

 _Don't tell me to keep watching you, though. I never stop, and you know it._


End file.
